Danny and Mindy's Very Fine Thursday
by soverysesual
Summary: Danny and Mindy end up spending Thanksgiving together in the office. This is a fluffy piece of Dandy fluff because I hate that Danny spends Thanksgiving alone.


For the first time in a long while, Mindy didn't have plans for Thanksgiving.

The usual plan with Gwen was cancelled at the last moment, as Riley had gotten a violent stomach flu from a bug that was going around her school. Gwen felt terrible and offered to help her come up with a new plan, but Mindy kindly told her that she'd be okay, and wished Gwen luck with the whole flu situation.

Mindy was determined to not get her spirits down about it. Who needs Thanksgiving anyways? Instead, she decided to head to the office, and get some important paperwork done. And maybe start to put up Christmas decorations a little early.

The office was silent when she arrived in the afternoon, and she smiled to herself. The peace and quiet was just what she needed. She flipped on her Christmas Pandora station and pretended it was simply just another Thursday.

—-

Danny found himself, once again, single and alone on Thanksgiving.

Not that it was a big deal to him. He never really liked the holiday that much to begin with. His mother really never put too much effort into it while he was growing up, mostly because they couldn't afford to. Instead, she liked to go all out on Christmas for her kids, and as a family they preferred to enjoy the holiday season that way.

So he spent most of his day giving his apartment a much needed cleaning, the sounds of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade filtered into his apartment every once in a while.

By the time he finished, it was starting to get dark, and he realized that the paperwork he needed to finish was still at work, and since he had nothing better to do, he headed to the office.

—-

Mindy didn't even realize that she had been at the office for a good six hours. She had gotten through about half of her work, then decided to decorate her office. She cranked the music up a bit more and danced around as she hung up tinsel and lights.

As she put up her little office-tree, "All I Want For Christmas Is You" came on and Mindy had no choice but to sing at the top of her lungs.

She didn't notice Danny walk in and lean against her office door and watch her dance around. When the song ended and she went to grab another ornament, he finally spoke up.

"Don't you think that song's a bit overrated?"

Mindy screamed and turned around, completely surprised. When she realized it was Danny she let out a sigh of relief, then threw an ornament at him.

"What the hell, Danny!" she yelled as he ducked out of the way. He laughed and stepped into her office with his hands up apologetically.

"Ah, I'm sorry Min, I didn't mean to scare you!" He laughed as she scrunched up her face angrily and went to pick up the ornament. "What are you doing here anyways? Shouldn't you be at Gwen's?"

"Riley's really sick, so it was cancelled. Today's just another Thursday for me, and now it's officially the Christmas season!" Mindy had a surprisingly bright grin on her face for someone who generally didn't like big changes of plans like this. He smiled back, glad to see she was keeping positive. "What are _you _doing here, Castellano?"

"I was just coming by to grab some documents," he shrugged. "I don't normally have plans for Turkey Day."

Mindy frowned, sad that Danny was implying that he was normally alone for Thanksgiving.

"Well, since neither of us have plans, do you wanna help me put up decorations around the office on this fine, regular Thursday?"

Danny couldn't hide the grin on his face. "Yeah. Let's do it!"

—-

It was nearing 9:00 in the evening when they finished decorating their entire office. Danny had connected the Christmas music to the office's speaker system and they goofed around the whole evening, putting up lights and tinsel, even some mistletoe ("No funny business, Castellano!" "Hey, right back atcha, Lahiri!").

When they finished, they found themselves back in Mindy's office, sitting on her floor and leaning up against her desk, admiring their work and chatting about random stuff.

"Thanks for helping, Danny. I really needed some help with distracting me from thinking about being alone on Thanksgiving." Mindy smiled up at him and he smiled back.

"Yeah, of course, Min. This was a lot better than what I did last year," she raised an eyebrow at him. "I may or may not have hung around the office all day by myself and tried to feed a mouse or a rat or something."

"Danny!" She shoved him a little. "Why didn't you say something? You could've come with me to Gwen's!"

"Nah, it's fine I mean I had a nice day…I learned how to play some of 'Piano Man' on the piano, I got some work done… Plus, we weren't even really friends at that point," he said quietly. They didn't say anything for a few moments as Danny played with a part of her rug, and Mindy fiddled with her bracelet.

"I'm glad that's not the case anymore," she said quietly, smiling innocently up at him. He turned to look at her and smiled back.

"Me too," he muttered. They broke eye contact after a few moments of sweetly smiling at each other. She leaned her head on his shoulder and slipped her hand into his.

"We should do this every year, yeah?" Mindy asked. She felt him nod his head.

"Definitely." There was some more comfortable silence that followed as Mindy closed her eyes and Danny sang very quietly along to "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" which was playing over the speakers, still holding Mindy's hand. He couldn't help but think about how this was exactly where he wanted to be, and that maybe Thanksgiving didn't always have to be so boring.

Mindy, eyes still closed, was lost in Danny's singing. She had no idea that Danny had a pretty good voice and she didn't move fearing that he would stop. When the song ended, she looked up at him and smiled again.

"So what does a girl have to do for her best friend to play her some Piano Man?"

He smirked and led her into his office, their hands still intertwined.


End file.
